chimpanzee

thanks for the responses and also thnks for being patient with my stupid questions. i appreciate it.

How often do you get psych patients who bring themselves into the er.... is it a common occurance or are they mostly brought in by someone else or by authorities? What is the percentage of self walkins vs having someone(police/abulance/family member/spouse) bring someone in. What about people who claim to have already done something potentially harmful and then coming in (ei after ingesting something deliberately) I'm just wondering how often everything it occurs and what percentage or which is more common. Im just curious.

uhh weird

The big hospital in the inner city has 950+ beds and is a teaching hospital.There's also a bunch of smaller community hospitals in suburban areas with about 250- 400 beds in each hospital. There's also a children's hospital in the city that has about 150 beds(had to look that up). So it really varies.

Thanks i was asking in general and also because of personal experience. Hmm i have never ever signed a consent(or even been asked to sign one) in the hospital. They've always just gone ahead and blabbed any info that i've said onto a family member. It really doesn't help seeing as in the future people just wont tell them information and as result people won't get the real help they need. I mean it wasn't that much of an issue as my family knew why i was in there but it did sort of ticked me off when i found out that they gave specific details without even consulting or asking me. I found out when i was listening to the voicemail on the home phone and found a detailed message from the doctor. I've since reported this doctor to higher ups. However this isn't the first time this has happened where a doctor has given specific information without my permission. Also what happens if they did ask me to sign the release forum but i objected to do so would that mean that they wouldn't be able to share information or would it make a difference?

So when a patient passes away are the sheets and gowns etc washed and then re used or are they thrown out? It's kind of gross if your a patient and to think that someone could have died in the gown your wearing or the sheets your using... but then again i guess it isn't much different when it comes to sleeping on the beds.... it's not like they're going to throw away the mattress because someone died on it.

I was going to go with orangatun but decided chimpanzee was better. I just felt like having a weird and random monkey username.

I know this is an old thread but i just wanted to add this. When i was in highschool.... about grade 10 so around 16 years old i went to a party with friends from school in a rough part of town. We went all out, we predrank and rented a limo to get there. Well half way there one girl started puking her guts out in the limo and was completely hammered. By the time we arrived at the location she was completely out and we had to call an ambulance and she spent the rest of the night in a coma. Meanwhile another girl from the limo was headed in the same direction and we had to call her mom to come and get her ASAP and her mom immediately did and took her to the hospital and according to the ER docs if she had waited she would have been in a coma as well. That wasn't the end of it though. As a result, the limo company with held various possessions of ours since we left them in the car(round trip ride) until we paid a cleaning deposit to clean the vomit from the car. We felt that since the girl who puked in the car then she should pay it well she thought differently. We never did get that money out of her and after various people attempting to call the company and even getting parents and relatives involved to go down personally to try and get our stuff back.... we did get some select possessions back but most not. I didn't get my stuff back. The other girl who's mom took her to the hospital had to forfeit going to a banquet with a guy she liked who asked her out. I went to public school but this stuff also happens in private schools as well. In fact where i live private schools have the most problems when it comes to drugs and alcohol. The truth is is that wealthy parents hand over their children money and what do you think the kids do with the money? They didn't 'earn' the money so they don't care that they blow it on useless things. I knew someone who's dad gave him $100 cash just because and next thing he did was went to the local tobacco store and bought the biggest bong he could find. HE didn't care because tomorrow mommy or daddy will give him whatever he snaps his fingers for so money was no issue. I honestly do think when a kid has worked for the money they seem to take little better care of it. Although there are always going to be those kids and adults even who blow paycheck after paycheck on drugs and alcohol. I just remembered another story from when i was in highschool. A girl went to a party the night before. Come the next day when she was still sleeping later in the afternoon her parents tried to wake her.... she never did wake up. Later they found out that cocaine was in her system.

Anyone with kids... Dr. McQueen Payne is quite a common last name. I've known a few people with that surname... no one in the medical field though.

Dr. Rainbow

Dr Jokes, A man comes into the ER and yells, "My wife's going to have her baby in the cab!" I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady's dress, and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs, and I was in the wrong one. Dr. Mark MacDonald, San Antonio, TX At the beginning of my shift I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient's anterior chest wall. "Big breaths," I instructed. "Yes, they used to be," remarked the patient. Dr. Richard Byrnes, Seattle, WA One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a "massive internal fart." Dr. Susan Steinberg, Manitoba, Canada I was performing a complete physical, including the visual acuity test. I placed the patient twenty feet from the chart and began, "Cover your right eye with your hand." He read the 20/20 line perfectly. "Now your left." Again, a flawless read. "Now both," I requested. There was silence. He couldn't even read the large E on the top line. I turned and discovered that he had done exactly what I had asked; he was standing there with both his eyes covered. I was laughing too hard to finish the exam. Dr. Matthew Theodropolous, Worcester, MA During a patient's two week follow-up appointment with his cardiologist, he informed me, his doctor, that he was having trouble with one of his medications. "Which one?" I asked. "The patch. The nurse told me to put on a new one every six hours and now I'm running out of places to put it!" I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn't see... Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Now the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one. Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk, VA While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked, "How long have you been bedridden?" After a look of complete confusion she answered... "Why, not for about twenty years, since my husband was alive." Dr. Steven Swanson, Corvallis, OR I was caring for a woman from Kentucky and asked, "So how's your breakfast this morning?" "It's very good, except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can't seem to get used to the taste," the patient replied. I then asked to see the jelly and the woman produced a foil packet labelled "KY Jelly." Dr. Leonard Kransdorf, Detroit, MI A Nurse was on duty in the Emergency Room, when a young woman with purple hair styled! Into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos, and wearing strange clothes entered. It was very quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for immediate surgery. When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, "Keep off the grass." Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient's dressing, which said, "Sorry, had to mow the lawn." Q: Which doctors have hardest work? A: Veterinarians and psychiatrists. They both have to deal with patients who can't tell what their problem is. Have a good day and keep out of the Dr's Office....

Do you get a lot of firecracker related injuries on halloween and new years or is it mainly just drunks on those holidays/events... or same old?

This is a completely random question coming from someone who's not even in nursing school yet so forgive me if this is a dumb question. I've just always wondered this. What is the busiest time in the ER? I heard that Mondays and weekends are busy but what about holidays? Perhaps after a holiday? Halloween? Christmas? Are there times of the year or seasons that tend to be especially bad? For instance during the winter when it gets dark and dreary do you get a lot of psych patients....In the summer do you get a lot of kids with injuries? Certain times throughout the day etc etc Or is it all just completely up in the air and anything can happen sort of thing? Thanks.

Thank your for your response Davey Do. I am aware that doctors and other health providers can with hold information from a patient if they believe it will have an impact on their health/well being. I am also aware that as a patient i can request my own medical records which includes doctor and nurse notes like said above as long as it doesn't affect the patient in a negative way. I haven't actually done this... What i'm talking about is though for instance a patient in the psych ward confesses to the psych doctor that they are suicidal and so on and then the doctor turns around calls(or tells when the family member attempts to call for information) the patients details of what they just stated to the doctor in that case it would have been the suicidality. Would that be a breach of patient/doctor confidentiality? The main thing i was asking about though was things directly being said by the patient to the doctor or nurse and then being passed on to family members. I was always told that everything you said between doctor and patient was kept in confidence and even if a family or friend called they technically aren't even supposed to acknowledge your presence in the facility/ward without patients permission. Thanks

I'm just wondering from a patient point of view, when does it cross the line to involve family members. I've been in psychiatric wards before and as a patient i've had both doctors and nurses disclose information to family members without my permission or even consulting me. Most of the time i didn't really mind but some of it i would have preferred to have been kept private. The main thing that bothers me is that they did it without consulting me first. It would have been nice to be asked before hand. Also i thought this was a violation of patient/doctor(or nurse) confidentiality I thought that everything discussed was to be strictly kept confidential.... Is this right or wrong? I've been searching all over the internet and can't seem to find a straight answer to this. Some clarification about the whole patient/doctor/nurse confidentiality thing would be greatly appreciated. Thanks